Urban Decay: Jean-Michel Basquiat Collection

On a rainy Saturday afternoon in Bolton the lovely girls at Urban Decay put on a bit of a party. What for? To celebrate the release of the Jean-Michel Basquiat collection.

There was food and drink, make-overs, glitter, a DJ, a raffle and of course a demonstration showing talking through who Jean-Michel was, the collection and demonstrating it in use.

I got to play will all parts of the collection not just the products I purchased so I’m going to share with you full swatches and some pictures from the day.

We started the event with the girls doing free quick make-overs and having everyone play with the products from the collection. Also available to play with were the new Vice Special Effects Lip Top Coats which I’ll talk a bit more about later.

There was a table of glitter for the children but of course all the adults had some too – it’s glitter!

Each piece in this collection is designed to be able to be hung on the wall as a piece of art after you’ve used up the product. There are picture hanging spaces built in, even on the lipsticks!
The packaging has a canvas feel to it with some raised areas, it’s like it was made to be touched. A little birdie told me that when you hit pan there’s a surprise underneath too!

Eye Palettes

The eye shadow quality in the palettes is superb I must say – Urban Decay of old kind of standards in my opinion. They blow the socks off anything they’ve done for a while – I hope this is a sign of a return to strength. The blues in particular are absolutely stunning!
Not all of the shades are as good as those but that’s the way a palette goes isn’t it? The deep purple for instance was less impressive and did require two swipes when I was swatching. I didn’t use primer however so I’m sure that would make a difference.

There are two eye palettes, a bright one named ‘Tenant’ and a more easily wearable neutral one named ‘Gold Griot’. I gravitated immediately to ‘Gold Griot’ because of the art on the front and also because of the name. Griot (also spelled griyot) is my favourite Haitian food and a treat I have every year at Christmas time.

All of these swatches were done with two swipes – some shades didn’t really need the second one but I did it so they were all fair! The blues in ‘Tenant’ are so vivid and the red-brown in ‘Gold Griot’ is also a stand out.

The Blush Palette

L-R – X-Rated, Now’s The Time, NOHO & Jawbone.

‘The Gallery’ blush palette contains two blushes, a highlighter and a bronzing shade. The bronzer is very strong and pigmented, possibly a little too much so for many paler folks – this is definitely one for those of you who were a bit miffed by the Gwen Stefani palettes. The highlight (‘Now’s The Time’) is similar to ‘Sin’ but deeper and more golden, very suited to olive or deeper skin tones.

Lipstick & Eyeliner

Three lip colours are available, the pink ‘Exhibition’ , the dark brown nude ‘Epigram’, and a light brown nude ‘Abstract’. I wasn’t taken with any of these personally as they’re not shades I would wear but I see how they fit with the rest of the collection.

There are also three matte eyeliners; a gorgeous and very usual shade of brownish-red ‘Anatomy’. A dramatic yellow ‘Post Punk’ and a beautiful and aptly named blue ‘Vivid’

The Demonstration

Urban Decay artist Lauren created this look using the Jean-Michel Basquiat collection and a touch of one of the new Vice Special Effects Lip Top Coats – which you can use anywhere!

As usual you can find all these swatches and larger versions of the pictures of the look created by Lauren over on my Flickr account.

Unfortunately I didn’t win the raffle but I did get a brilliant goodie bag with my purchases – inside were loads of samples including the tiniest, cutest, little liquid eyeliner I have ever seen as well as a full size Vice lipstick.
Thank you to Maria & Lauren for putting on such a brilliant afternoon and thank you for inviting me!

I'm Kath; a qualified beauty therapist and make-up artist. I'm currently studying media make-up and special effects to add some more strings to my bow. I'm a "make-up geek" as my friends say and am also a bit obsessed with nail polish too! I use this site to share my love of make-up and beauty and skin care education.
I'm also a bendy-EDSer and a wheelchair user.
Portfolio website coming soon!
bendybeauty.com